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HON. W. GA McADOO, 



ASSOCIATED ALUMNI 



ast-ienn^Bsee ftnibersHs, 



Enoxville, Tennessee, June 20th, 1871 > 



MILLEDOEVILLE, OA: 7 

riDB&AL VBIOM BOOK ADD JOB OWWlCt. 
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Knoxville, Tennessee, June 20th, 1871. 
Hon. Wm. G. McAdoo : 

Dear Sir: — At a meeting this day of the associated 
Alumni of East Tennessee University, a vote of thanks 
vras unanimously passed for your able, original, and in- 
structive Address, this day delivered before them ; and by 
their order I am instructed to request a copy of the same 
for publication. 

With the hope that you may return a favorable reply to 
the request, and vi^ith sentiments of the highest personal 
esteem, 

I am, sir, &c., 

W. A. Henderson, 

Secretary, &c. 



Knoxville, Tenn., June 21, 1871. 
W. A. Henderson, Esq., 

Secretary Associated Alumni E. T. Univeisity, 
Dear Sir : — Your polite and complimentary note re- 
questing a copy of my Address of yesterday, is before me. 
I comply with unaffected pleasure, and transmit herewith 
the MS. Its crudities and prolixities of composition I 
regret, but cannot amend for the want now of the element 
whose need in the hour of composition occasioned them — 
time. When Sir Walter Scott was asked why he had not 
written his life of Napoleon in two volumes instead of 
three, he replied " Because I had not time." 
I am, with great respect, yours, &c., 

W. G. McAdoo. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE 

OF THE 



Brethren of the Associated Alumni of East- Tennessee University : 

Almost under the Equator in South America stands the 
snow-capped peak, long supposed, but mistakenly, to be 
the highest pinnacle ot land on our globe. It bears the 
well known name of Ciiimborazo — familiar to the ears of 
even school children. The name in one of our standard 
works is pronounced to be Spanish. That is an error. 
Baron Von Humboldt, in his "Views of Nature," devotes 
some space to its derivation, ending by the closely reason- 
ed conjecture that the name is a relic of lost people and a 
perishtd language. What a superb monument — a grand 
granite shaft 21,424 feet in height — its summit glittering 
with perpetual snow beneath the splendors of a tropical sun, 
— as the memorial of a lost race whose very name has 
passed away, whose language has vanished save the one 
word Chim/jorazo ! 

The namehal descended, perhaps through several suc- 
cessive nationalities in occupancy of that sublime Andean 
region, to the proud race of the Incas. At time of the 
Spanish Conquest, it passed unmutilated to the fol- 
lowers of Pizarro, and thus is introduced to a permanent 
place in the written languages of the world of modern 
civilization. 

In contrast to this notable example, the Geographical 
Nomenclature of the United States presents in our day 
some peculiar and perplexing evils. A brief consideration 
of these will constitute the main subject of the discourse 
this evening. 

Our peculiarities of origin and history, and some of the 
leading features of our governmental organization, very 
naturally led to these evils. Blessings greater than the 
evils came from these circumstances. Imperfections form 



4 6E0QBAPHICAL KOMENCLATUBE. 

a composite feature of every human institution — I may add 
of every earthly organization. The true philosophical 
economy is to eliminate the faults, and develop and increase 
the good elements, wherever possible, in all the wide range 
of practicalities pertaining to human existence. Perfection, 
though never attained, must be constantly sought il we 
would attain eminence. Michael Angelo remarked to a 
friend who wondered at the great artist's excessive labor to 
remedy slight defects, •' Recollect that trifles make perfec- 
tion, and that perfection is no trifle." 

We have a vast Republic, destined doubtless to become 
yet vaster ; a conglomerate mass of minor republics held 
together in one nationality by a system pecujiarly our own. 
The Fathers nicely adjusted its checks and balances; and 
from their giant hands the orb of our Republic swung out 
in space and revolved among the Nations. So nicely was 
the adjustment of the centrifugal and centripetal forces per- 
fected, that though convulsions of all sorts from the pet- 
tiest to the mightiest, have tested our orbital powers, we 
Btill revolve in the pathway of Republican Institutions, 
escaping alike the contrifugal forces of anarchy on the one 
hand, and the contripetal Sun of Despotism on the other. 
May our terrestial astronomy — it such a term be admis- 
sible — continue the same forever! 

The very natural and deserved love of our people for 
these fathers, and for the Revolutionary and subsequent 
heroes who shaped our greatness, commend themselves to 
our admiration. Gratitude for past favors has been said to 
have been forgotten occasionally among the sons of men. 

But this gratitude has assumed one shape against which 
I beg this day to protest. I file my demurrer against ex- 
cessive geographical gratitude. I will illustrate. 

We have m the United States — or I should say had in 
1864, the date of the latest authority on the subject within 
my reach — 254 places named Washington — 243 named Jack- 
son — 171 named Jefferson — with multitudinous Monroes 
and Madisons and Marions — Putnams, Clintons, Knoxes and 
Hamiltons. Ten of these leading names are applied to 
1367 places — an average of nearly 137 places to each name. 
There is not a State or Territory in the Union where these 
favorite names have not been planted in the first footsteps 
of the American pioneer, during the ninety years of our post 
Revolutionary history. They spring up as spontaneously 
in the pioneer's footsteps as the present poet laureate of 
Great Britain makes the violets evolve from the footprints 
of his hero's mistress in one of his finest productions, 
"Maud." 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. O 

We say nothing of names of streets in all of our Ameri- 
can villages, towns and cities. There is not one in all the 
land which has not one named " in honor" of some of these 
great liistuk ical — and I may add geographical — heroes. The 
authors of American Geographical Nomenclature are evi- 
dently Ol the opinion of the noted " Captaine John Smith" 
of Powhatan and Pocahontas memory, who writes in his 
charming history of the Bermudas, "As Geography with- 
out History seemeth a carcasse without motion, so History 
without Geography wandereth as a Vagrant without a cer- 
taine habitation." Geography has certainly conspired with 
history in perpetuating these favorite names. They are 
not left to the vagrancy of history : but we may almost ac- 
cuse them of a species of Geographical " vagrancy," since 
they have wandered into so many places ; and I could add, 
I fear, idhj wandered : a vagrancy unknown to the right 
valiant " Captaine John Smith," since we find on his map 
of Virginia not a single Smithton, or Smithville ; and our 
investigations lead to the conclusion that not one of the 
84 places in the United States named Smith (with or with- 
out " variations") has been named in honor ol the knightly 
pioneer of that name in the New World. Alas ! he did not 
live long enough to be a member of a State Legislature — 
or a leading constituent of any member! In short, " Cap- 
taine John Smith" lived too soon in the world's history, or 
died before his time! So that whatever he may be histori- 
cally, geographically he is a nobody ! 

If these canonized geographical names in our Republic 
were restricted to one in each State, that might be endured. 
There are now but 37 States in the Federal Union. There 
are 10 Territories, also ; and if the ten favorite Geographi- 
cal names of Americans weie similarly allotted to them, 
the total would be 47. Or if that should be deemed ia- 
8uf!icient to attest our own quasi-apotheosis of our favorite 
heroes, we might double the\ number by assigning to each 
not only a town or city, but a county also, making a total 
of about 74. And this brings us to mention another geo- 
graphical monstrosity against which we peculiarly protest. 

It is not enough that each State and Territory should be 
running over with Washingtons, Jeffersons and the like ; 
but their distribution on our great map has been effected in 
as disorderly a manner as possible. 

In this, my native State, we have a Washington county 
to the East of us with Jonesborough as the seat of justice; 
and the town of Washington lies to the West of us and is 
the seat of Justice in Rhea county, whilst Rhea-town is in 
Greene county. In my adopted State (Georgia) Washing- 



b GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

ton county has for its seat of justice Sandersville; and the 
town of Washington is in Wilkes county. In our neighbor 
Kentucky the co2^?i^?/ of Washington is in one part of the 
State, the town of Washington in another. In this noble 
State, Jaclison is in Madison county ; while Jackson county 
has Gainesville for its county town ; Madisonville is in Mon- 
roe county, and the town of Monroe in Overton county. 
Occasionally, and quite exceptionally, we find the name of 
the county and its seat of justice in accidental coincidence 
— as this beautiful and flourishing city of Knoxville in 
Knox county; our Tennessee Greenville \n Greene county ; 
the town of Washington in Texas in the county of that name; 
and a few others equally fortunate in what may be term- 
ed their geographical covjunctivities ; but usually all the re- 
sources of mathematical permutation have been exhausted 
to scatter a few dozens of favorite names over our grand 
national map of the United States to as many points as 
possible. It would seem that these cunning architects of 
our geographical system had used these patriotic names 
with nice and distributive calculation — as the civil engin- 
eer does his fastenings and his bolts when spanning an abyss 
with a bridge. Happy are we to-day to be standing on a 
portion of the structure braced by two good honored bolts 
conjunctively commemorative of the patriotic Henry Knox, 
the gallant Revolutionary hero, and the first American 
" Secretary of War," under the present Constitution of the 
United States ; and a name, too, not worn to a too degrad- 
ing commonness by universality of National use — Knoxt-iZ/g, 
in Knox county — perhaps a little overdone in usage geo- 
graphical; but not subjected to the " wasteful and ridicu- 
lous excess" of other great names. 

If we withdraw our map-gazing eyes from these nomen- 
clatural stars of the first magnitude, what a wilderness 
of lesser luminaries arrest the vision ! And as we pass 
from one State-map to another, what a sameness of names ! 
Verily inventiveness seems to have been wholly wanting 
in the improvisation of names, among the brave old pio- 
neers who doubtless found the study of the arts of toma- 
hawking and scalping of far more practical value than 
geographical nomenclature. Their immediate successors 
were too intensely occupied with daily practicalities of 
life to bestovr names on localities with an enlarged consid- 
eration which embraced our whole country. 

Passing therefore from the great Revolutionary and other 
historical names, we reach a still more numerous array — 
"the rank and file" of the great nomenclatural host, if the 
former names may be reckoned the commissioned oncers. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE 7 

We are tempted to give the names of counties properly 
(as we conceive) classified under this head, by way of illus- 
tration — not in all the States; that would consume far 
more time than could be spared on an occasion like the 
present; but in one State. We select Texas: in fault-find- 
ing, the principle is universal that the farther from home 
we choose examples, the safer the fault-finding can be prac- 
ticed. This principle is applicable from the humblest 
walks of domestic life to the loftiest range of philosophi- 
cal investigation. We take at random from the map of 
Texas the follov/ing names of counties: Jones, Taylor, 
Runnels, Edwards, Webb, Starr, Kerr, Gillespie, Mason, 
Coleman, Brown, Archer, Young, Hamilton, Burnet, Hays, 
Karnes, Caldwell, Williamson, Bell, McClellan, Johnson, 
Parker, Cooke, Ellis, Robertson, Harris, Chambers, Walker, 
Hardin, Anderson, Henderson, Smith, Wood, Hunt, Hop- 
kins. 

Very many of these names are identical with names of 
counties in our own State; in our neighbor Kentucky; 
and in half the other States of the Union. W^e complain 
not at the deserveduess of their bestowal : doubtless in 
each State where the names are found, the particular Jones, 
and Smith, and Anderson and Walker were gentlemen of 
sterling merit richly deserving the compliment ; but the 
confusion growing out of the multiplication of such names 
is interminable. We complain not of a want of euphony 
or beauty in these names ; but the grandest poem, or rich- 
est oratorio that ever human genius produced would fatigue 
any mortal ears into a sense of monotony if constantly re- 
cited. Aid this is the smallest of the objections. Not as 
counties al ,>ue, but as towns and cross-roads, and streets and 
post-officec. do these and similar names figure on our maps 
of the various States in every conceivable combination. 

In whose honor were the foregoing names of counties in 
Texas conferred? In whose honor the similar or analogous 
names of other States ? The few of the present genera- 
tion who happen to know will soon pass away. The anti- 
quarian of future times may discover, if idle curiosity be 
worth the gratifying, and if haply the original acts of the 
Legislature conferring them contain preambulary mention 
thereof, and have escaped the " dusty death" which awaits 
sooner or later all such records. 

In illustration of the uncertainty of the preservation of 
legislative intentions in the bestowal of such honors, allow 
the presentation of a singular instance. In whose honor 
was the handsome and thrifty village of Clinton,m Tennes- 
see, named ? That question was propounded to us recent- 



8 GBOORAFHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

ly ia another State. Inasmuch as we felt all the natural 
pride in reference to the village connected with happy days 
of early life, and nativity in the neighborhood, we investi- 
gated the subject. After some effort we succeeded in find- 
ing a copy of the official pamphlet acts of the Tennessee 
Legislature of the year 1809, and examined the law chang- 
ing the name from Burrville to Clinton. But which Clinton? 
For at that period, two gentlemen of that name held de- 
served eminence : De Witt Clinton, who had been actively 
engaged in the Hamilton-Burr feud in New York which led 
afterwards to Hamilton's death at the hands of Burr, and who 
had, in 1802 fought a duel with Swartwout the friend of 
Burr? Or George Clinton who succeeded Burr in the Vice 
Presidency of the United States in 1805 ? There is noth- 
ing in the preamble, or in tb body of the act, to indicate; 
and if the precise significance of the honor is preserved in 
any record, or runneth " in the memory of man," it lies 
not within our knowledge. In 1864 there were one hun- 
dred and one localities named Clinton on the map of the 
United States. To honor whom were the other hundred 
80 named? It would be an amusing (though excessively 
idle) curiosity, it life had no more serious duties, to investi- 
gate the subject. 

In the United States are fifteen villages named Midway. 
In Georgia not only is there a village named Midway^ sit- 
uated about two miles distant from Milledgeville, but there 
is in another county in Georgia a post village named Mid- 
ville. Oglethorpe University, being situated in Midioay, a 
flourishing Institution, it became desirable to have a post- 
office established in the village- It was observed that the 
students of the University, during the excitements attend- 
ant on sessions of the Legislature of Georgia in Milledge- 
ville, then the Capital, became seriously encumbered with 
weighty correspondences. Visits to the Milledgeville Post- 
Office were abnormally necessary: abnormally as regarded 
scientific and literary progress — normally enough in preco- 
cious political and other knowledge floating frothily on the 
surface of life in State and other capitals. Hence the need 
of the Midway Post- Office. But being established, distrib- 
uting Post Masters and other careless officials made infinite 
tonfusiou in the interchange of letters directed respectively 
to Midu'ay and WiAviUe — to say nothing of that growing 
out of the existence of the numerous Midways in adjacent 
States. President Talmage of Oglethorpe University, one 
of the ablest and best of men, represented the grievance to 
the General Post-Office Department, and was surprised by 
a change of the name of the Midway Fast-Office to " Tal- 



\ 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. » 

mage." But the difficulty was increased : there were four 
other places in the United States, with a similar name, Tal- 
mage— slightly ditTerent in spelling, but substantially the 
name ; and the r?7/</o-e yet being iianied " Midway," and so set 
forth on our maps, careless persons persisted in addressing 
letters to " Midway" as before. Letters addressed to Tal- 
mage — especially if the " Georgia" designative of the State 
were carelessly written, or carelessly examined by hurried 
officials— went often to other Talmages; and if addressed to 
Midway, they were sure to go astray. Wherefore — strange 
to say — the young gentlemen of the University, with suf- 
ficient perplexities aside from postal troubles in climbing 
the rugged hill of science, prefened to conduct their neces- 
sary and extensive correspondence through the Milledge- 
ville Post-Office— especially during the sittings of the Leg- 
islature. 

And here one great practical inconvenience of this exten- 
sive multiplication of a few favorite geographical names in 
the United States — this wholesale dispersion of them all 
over our national map, I might term it — may as well be 
alluded to. Man — the term, be it well understood, is used 
genericaUy, comprehending both sexes — man in this latter 
half of the 19th century, is pre-eminently a letter-writing 
and a letter-reading creature. If the whole of Prof. Dar- 
win's startling philosophy of the Descent of Man be true, 
we may expect, ere many generations elapse, to find the 
advance corps in the march of literary " national selection" 
stepping into the world with pens in their hands already fash- 
ioned, nibbed and inked. It is of the highest moment that 
the letters we write should reach their respective destina- 
tions, and likewise those written to us. Steam and elec- 
tricity by hastening human intercourse immensely, has 
practically lergthened our lives as measured by our possi- 
bilities of achievement in the matter of both physical and 
intellectual results. But "Avarus semper eget." The more 
we have, the more we want. In the particular now under 
special consideration, I may say the moie we imperioiisly 
need; for the rapidities of modern action by reason of the 
great revolutionizing material agencies referred to, and the 
consequent structural organization of our daily life (so to 
speak) in the year 1S71, actually require the utmost certain- 
ty and speed in our postal communications. We have not 
time, therefore, to await the arrival of a letter which shall 
perambulate the United States in search of the right "Mid- 
way," or the right Washington, Jackson, Madison — or 
Smithville, Jonesville, or Brownsville — until it stumbles 
upon the proper species in that genua of Post-Offices, or 



10 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE.' 

drops defunct into the great postal Lake Asphaltites, the 
tideless Dead Letter Office, 

To obviate a similar difficulty, on a larger scale, than 
that which led to the postal change of the G-eorgian Mid- 
way to "Talmage," the General Post Office Department 
has recently changed the name of the new Capital of West 
Virginia from Charleston to Kanawha City. The name is 
appropriate as being distinctive. In the boundaries of this 
new State are tw3 places named Charleston — one, we be- 
lieve spelled slightly differently from the other, but both es- 
sentially the same, and so very similar at best as to cause the 
Post Office Department to make the change just mention- 
ed. But little good will come of this — indeed worse con- 
fusion probably — unless the Legislature of that new and 
vigorous scion of the Old Dominion likewise change the 
name to Kanawha City, for State and all other purposes. 
And inasmuch as one Virginia is enough on the map 
of the United States, and ought to suffice the compli- 
mentary duty to the shade of the gre. ^ Virgin Queen 
in whose honor it was named, we venture to suggest that 
American geographical conveniences would be served by 
naming the State otherwise than Wat Virgirda. Ka?iawha, 
the name of its chief interior River ; or Appalachian the 
generic name of the vast mountain system of which 
its area is a part : or Algonquin, the generic name of Abo- 
riginal nationalities occupying that and other territory 
prior to their displacement by the white man — either would 
be better than the compound West-Virginia. And this 
brings us to the consideration of the remedy for this great 
geographical nuisance, the infinite multiplification of a few 
favorite names, or multitudes of indifferent names, and 
other cognate evils, which befog American geography to 
an extent never attained in any other country. The reme- 
dy proposed is the employment of distinctive and appro- 
priate Aboriginalorother terms, in the designation of locali- 
ties or districts. This should be effected in two ways : 1. 
The application, in the main — not exclusively — of Aborig- 
inal terms of euphonic peculiarity to new places ; and 2d. 
The revision of our geographical nomenclature, and substi- 
tution of distinctive Aboriginal, or other terms to places 
now inappropriately named. 

1. There should be a distinctive and peculiar name as- 
signed to each geographical object which needs a name. 
Especially is this true in reference to those places which 
are, or may become, Post-Offices. And it would be better 
for the General Post-Office Department to have ample 
power over the geographical nomenclature of the United 



GEOaRAPHICAL NOMENCLETURE. 11 

States, under the guidance of wise and careful constitutioa- 
al and legal authority. That authority should not be lim- 
ited to the fixation of a mere postal name to a locality, as in 
the cases mentioned of "Talmage" in Georgia and " Kan- 
awha City," in West Virginia; but it should be ample to 
pass upon the name officially tor all purposes; to revise, if 
necessary, State Legislation in the bestowal of names ; to 
have in short, that stipreme control over the geographical 
nomenclature of the country which should insure to us a 
system of uniformity in variety, of combined beauty and 
utility, worthy of a great people : not a separate system 
for each State, but one uniform system for our great 
national Republic. Surely the veriest stickler for "State 
Rights" can not find in this suggestion any attempted 
abrasion of aught valuable in State sovereignty. Nation- 
al authority, ample, and lodged in some one Depart- 
ment of the Government — v.^e have suggested the Post- 
Office Department — would be absolutely necessary to se- 
cure the desirable elements mentioned in Geographical 
Nomenclature. State Legislatures, however desirous of 
conforming to the nomenclatural philosophy here advo- 
cated, would be liable to fall into duplicative mistakes, act- 
ing often simultaneously and at widely distant parts of 
our continent. Hence the need of one supreme central 
revisory authority. 

The magnitude of our geographical nomenclature as- 
sumes gigantic proportions if we pierce with a vision of 
sure calculation, not of conjecture, for a few moments, that 
veil which an elegant modern writer has termed " a veil of 
mercy" because it " hides the future from our sight," and 
gaze as we may do, without pain, in pride at the great fu- 
turity to which our Republic is tending. In an area of 
nearly three millions of square miles contained in the ter- 
ritorial limits of the United States, we have a population, 
according to the census of last year of only 38,095,680 
souls — about 13 to the square mile. What population la 
that as compared with our territorial capacity in this respect? 
Belgium supports a population of 430 inhabitants to the 
square mile. France, prior to the great desolating war 
which in the last eleven months has reduced her from a 
a first to (at most) u second rate power of the world, and 
has smitten her with a frightful mortality, reckoned 182 to 
the square mile. Our State of Massachusetts contains ac- 
cording to the census of 1870, one hundred and eighty-sev- 
en inhabitants to the square mile. It may be safely esti- 
mated that the whole territory of the United States, on an 
average, will be supporting not many ages hence, one hua- 



12 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

dred people to every square mile of territory. And as 
Bishop Berkeley poeticall)- prophesied a century and a 
half since, the moving of " the star of empire" Westward, 
now in the course of rapid fulfilment, we feel that we are 
indulging no conjectural dream at reckoning our popula- 
tion in the not very distant future at 293,616,800 — 100 to 
the square mile. In a *' settlement" ot this immensity, and 
density, it is easy to perceive that a mighty host of geo- 
graphical names will be required. If we proceed under 
the present system, the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Jacksons, 
Joneses, will each run up into thousands instead of hun- 
dreds, and confusion will be, indeed (to speak M'dtonically) 
" worse-confounded." 

To obviate the difficulty, we have but to take the hint 
given us by those who have handed down through succes- 
sive races, and unwritten languages, the grand old mystic 
name Chimhorazo, and follow that hint to its legitimate re- 
sults. That philosophy of nomenclature was indeed large- 
ly followed by the cartiest explorers and conquerors of ter- 
ritory in the New World. Not only did Chimhorazo survive 
a conquest the most cruel that defaces the pages of history ; 
but the map of Spanish America is rich in the number of 
euphonious Aboriginal names enstamped there indelibly. 
The names of Mexican States afford some fine examples — 
as Sonora, Cinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and others, not 
omitting Mexico itself. 

The comraenr'able habit of adopting Aboriginal names 
into our Greographical nomenclature within the boundaries 
of the United States has never been wholly omitted ; but 
it has not kept pace with the real wants of our expansion 
as a great people. It seems to have fallen considerably 
into disuse in later times. In our colonial days perhaps 
men were less aspiring after Geographical honors than in 
later times they have shown themselves to be. They left 
more Aboriginal names to designate newly found objects. 

If we turn, for example, to the map of Virginia, the old- 
est of the English settlements in America, we shall find a 
singular adoption of Aboriginal names into geographical 
use. We shall find a singular absence of names of the 
early explorers pasted with ready facility, like labels on 
bottles, along the borders of the newly discovered streams. 
Those early explorers had not learned the easy trick of 
geographical immortality so much practised in later times. 
Perhaps we may assume that they had less "asswwac?/" in 
them than more modern heroes : we introduce a Georgian 
word " assumacy" to our audience this evening as a wor- 
thy candidate for admittance into the columned temple of 



OEOGEAPAICAL NOMENCLATURE. 13 

the next edition of our great National Dictionary ; a word 
truly meeting a want of the age to express without circum- 
locution the peculiar quality most necessary to modern 
eminence. The word came into use in that State some 
twenty years since, and has been adopted in the usage of 
scholars and eminent public men. Smith, as we have 
seen, baffled the cunning of Powhatan, and founded on a 
secure basis " The Old Dominion," without leaving a 
Smithville in all the domain he had wrested from the sav- 
age. Neither did Amidas, nor Barlow, the adventurers of 
1584, attempt to affix their names to a single stream of 
water or a strip of land which they explore ^ in the territo- 
ry reckoned at that period as Virginia, but now a part of 
our own noble mother-State, North Carolina. Even Sir 
Walter Raleigh — the mightiest of the early Virginian ex- 
plorers and adventurers, although some idle attempt was 
made, no where persisted in leaving on mountain peak or 
plain, by river, shore, or island border of his favorite ele- 
ment, the ocean, any one of the seven different forms in 
which that great name was written in his day. How well 
he could omit to climb by such steps towards earthly im- 
mortality we can judge, (and judging, ej^c^^se the humbler 
means of notoriety in later days) when we reflect on the 
estimate which his great life, and still greater death, has 
elicited from the pens of men of genius in different ages. 
Well has the most brilliant writer of modern times, Lord 
Macaulay, summed up his character in the following lan- 
guage : " Raleigh, the soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the 
poet, the historian, the philosopher; whom we picture to 
ourselves sometimes reviewing the Queen's guards, some- 
times giving chase to a Spanish galleon, then answering 
the chiefs of the country party in the House of Commons, 
then again murmuring one of his sweet love-songs too near 
the ears of her Highness's maids of Honor, and soon after 
poring over the Talmud, or collating Polybius with Livy." 
Not even Raleigh, after linking his name inseparably in 
History to the shores of the New World, and introducing 
thence to the Old World the universal narcotic of modern 
days, tobacco, left his name geographically linked to any 
locality. The long after-thought of posterity has feebly 
done him that "honor" in the days when honors are easy. 
In West Virginia, a portion of Fayette county was cut off a 
few years since and erected into the county of Raleigh in 
honor of the great Sir Walter. Five other localities named 
Raleigh exisi in the United States : the chief one, the beau- 
tiful Capital of our parent State, so named in 1792 in revi- 
val of the futile offer of two centuries before to found a city 



14 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

of that name. The very attempt at that species of hero- 
worship in the days of Raleigh may well illustrate how 
very modern is the sort of " improvement" concerning 
the excess of which we have ventured to complain. 

Among the early Royal Governors of Virginia, how few 
the names transmitted to us geographically ! Neither Lord 
de War, nor Sir Thomas Dale, nor Sir 'I'homas Gates, nor 
George Yardley, nor Francis West, nor Sir Francis VVyatt, 
nor his " Excellency" (as we now style them) plain John 
Potts, left Geographical names. They could have command- 
ed such honors — all but the last — had they wished ; but 
they permitted the Chickahominy, and the Mattapony, and 
the Appomattox, to roll their waters to the sea with pagan 
names written on the maps along the shores. And we 
may add the same ot Governors Harvey, and West, and 
Bennett, and Diggs and Matthews— all ante-Revolutionary 
Governors. And of about 650 names of "Adventurers for 
Virginia alphabetically set downe according to a printed 
Booke set out by the Treasurer and Councill in this present 
yeeie 1620," as Captain John Smith informs us in his charm- 
ing "Historic of Virginia, New England and the Summer 
lies" not one, we believe has a "local habitation" on the 
map of Virginia, or ever had. Very many of them were 
British Knights and noblemen, filled with high personal 
ambition: yet they did not seek to supersede Aboriginal 
names of places in the New World. 

Right well has noble Virginia preserved geographically 
the fine old Aboriginal names — especially in that which I 
will venture to designate as her jluvial nomenclature. In 
addition to the three examples just mentioned, \vq may 
add Potomac, Monongahela, Kanawha, Shenandoah, Rappa- 
hannock, Roanoke, Chickahominy, Pamuuky, Mattapony, 
Piankatank, Opequan, Nottaway, Occoquan, and Chopo- 
wamsic. In later times other names came to other Virginian 
streams. Rivers named respectively Buffalo; Little River, 
with an " East Fork" and " West Fork :" Roach's River ; 
State River, and North, and Meadow, and Cherry Tree 
River, and Cranberry River, and William's River, Coal 
River, Little Coal River, and Tug River, with tributaries 
designated on the map-as the Dry South Fork, and the 
Beach Fork, and the North Fork, and the Elk-Horn Fork, 
all of that same Tug River ! We shall add but three more : 
Pole River, and New River, and Cheat River. We simply 
submit the question to human taste which is the superior 
Geographical nomenclature, that of the Red man or that oi 
the White? 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 15 

We trust no one will imagine for a moment we are en- 
deavoring to hold up Virginia — either of the Virginias, for 
now there are two — to ridicule. There is no especial 
room for ridicule in that quarter, among Tennesseeans — or 
indeed the people of other States. Let us illustrate : 

In Tennessee are the following Rivers; Reelfoot — Fork- 
ed-Deer, with a North Fork, a South Fork, a Middle Fork 
and a Little Middle Fork! — Wolf, Beech, Big Sandy, with 
a West Sandy tributary ; Duck, which one of her native 
poets celebrated more than a half century ago by a spirited 
ode commencing with the couplet, 

" Down on the little river Duck, 
Where many a wagon and team has stuck" — 

Red River with two "Whippoorwill" Forks, and others, 
flowing from Kentucky into the main stream — Stone's Riv- 
er, with East and West *' Forks" — and Harpeth, Elk, Col- 
lins, Buffalo, Caney Fork, Cumberland, Roaring, Obeys, 
Big Emory, Little Emory, New, Powell's, Little, Pigeon, 
Clinch, French Broad. Many of these have numerous 
" Forks" which we omit. As a set off against these, we 
have a fewer array of fine Aboriginal names than the Vir- 
ginians. Tennessee, Obion, Hatchee, Sequatchee, Hiwassee, 
Ocoee, Tellico, Nollichucky, and Watauga very nearly ex- 
haust the supply. 

The Georgians have done better in preserving the fine 
old Aboriginal names of Rivers. The map of that State 
displays but the following of English origin, with perhaps 
a few unintentional omissions: Flint; Turtle; North; 
Newport ; South Newport ; Broad ; Yellow ; Cumberland ; 
Macey's; St. Mary's ; St. Simon's; Great Saint Ilia, Lit- 
tle Saint Ilia ; and two Rivers in distant parts of the State, 
each named Little River ! We have seen that Virginia and 
Tennessee, also, is each enriched with a Little River. We 
have not examined critically the maps of the numerous 
States and Territories; but we presume not one of them 
can do without one, at least — or two, as in the instance of 
Georgia. 

On the other hand, Georgian fluvial nomenclature exhib- 
its a large catalogue of euphonious, and I may add with- 
out attempting in this discourse to explore that field at 
length, signi/icayit and appropriate Aboriginal names. The 
following are examples : Chattooga — Tallulah — Tugaloo — 
Chattahoochee — Conasauga — Oostenaula — Chicamauga — 
Thronateeska, which is the beautiful Aboriginal name for 
the stream in Georgia in later times characterized by the 
highly original and distinctive name of Flint River (a name 
which designates only eleve7i other streams in the United 



16 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

States) — Ocopilco — AUapahaw — Ogeechee — Oconee — Oc- 
mulgee — and Altamaha. 

We may remark that rivers and mountains seem to have 
preserved more frequently their Aboriginal names than 
other geographical objects. The latter — as the civil boun- 
daries of newly settled districts — were for the most part, 
artificial, and the creations (in one sense) of the white 
man. No corresponding name to represent the precise 
object existed in the Aboriginal languages; or if it 
did, the pioneer was not learned enough in the red man'a 
tongue to use it; or, if he were, possibly he did not admire, 
or love him sufficiently to fancy its adoption. There were 
often tomahawking and scalping scores to settle between 
them, and a general feeling of " unpleasantness." The 
white man was relatively to the savage in the wrong 
focal distance of sound to blend the discords of the red 
man's language into harmony. We can well comprehend 
this. The most natural spirit in the world, and illustrative 
of what we are considering, is observable in the quaint old 
title page of 1716, as follows: •' The entertaining History 
of King Philip's War which began in the month of June, 
1675, as also of Expeditions more lately made against the 
Common Enemy and Indian Rebels in the Eastern parts of New 
England : With some account of the Divine Providence 
towards Col. Benjamin Church : By Thomas Church, Esq., 
his son." Whilst, therefore, most naturally, and indeed 
often from necessity, adopting his own geographical names 
(and of course English names) for definite boundaries of terri' 
iory, it is no less surprising than gratifying that these honest 
old Indian haters should have adopted so many Aboriginal 
geograjthical names of mountains and streams as they did. 
Wherever they did otherwise, however, their tampering 
hands touched but to damage. 

The map of the State of South Carolina may afford a good 
illustration of what has been said in the foregoing para- 
graph. Of her 29 Civil Divisions, and the 29 cities and 
towns where the courts for these divisions are respectively 
held, not one is of Aboriginal origin. Of her thirteen 
principal Rivers, ten bear Aboriginal names, and most of 
them very euphonious. Three, only, bear names of Eng- 
lish origin. Of these, two in widely distant parts of the 
State bear the name of " Broad." One of these South Car- 
olina Broad Rivers (there are more of the same name ia 
other States) stretches its beautiful waters through the 
very region once occupied by the romance-famed Yamas- 
see Indians. The pen of a distinguished litter'iteur of South 
Carolina has preserved the romance of the history of the 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 17 

Yamassees. A small paragraph in history of colonial days, 
and a scanty corner in old colonial maps ; these remain. 
The beautiful river of the tribe is now Broad River, No. 2, 
South Carolina. Why not Yamassee f 

A glance at the map of New England will show a com- 
mendable preservation of Aboriginal geographical names : 
not so euphonious, usually, as those of more Southern climes, 
but distinctive and far preferable to any of those great 
crops of nomenclatural tares which threaten all the har- 
vest of variety the geography of a grand country and a vast 
people ought to possess. We shall find that the heroic 
Pilgrim Fathers had other duties to perform than those of 
affixing, or causing to be affixed, to towns and villages, 
counties or territories, their own immortal names. Ply- 
mouth was named in commemoration and gratitude of the 
sympathy and hospitality of Plymouth in Old England, 
the point from which the Mayflower took her departure 
from the Old World. Of the fourteen counties of Massa- 
chusetts, we find but one of Aboriginal derivation ; but we 
find the name of the State itself, and those of the Rivers 
Connecticut, Chicopee, Housatonic, Quiunebaug, and Mer- 
rimac; and of the Hoosac, Wachusett and Taconic Moun- 
tains ; and Narragansett Bay ; still redolent of naemories 
of the good Massasoit. But of the names of the good 
Samoset who exclaimed " Welcome Englishmen /" and of 
the noble old Chieftain Massasoit ; and Squanto, and Ho- 
bomac his braves — the four who first "interviewed" (to 
use a fashionable modernism) the travel-worn pilgrims from 
a distant shore, not one lives in Geography. Almost has 
the ungrateful old colonial geography treated with equal 
neglect the Pilgrims themselves. John Carver, Governor 
of the Colony, who received Massasoit, perhaps has one 
such memorial in Massachusetts. Bradford, his successor 
in the Executive, is barely remembered : so with Brewster. 
And Robinson, Cushman, Winslow, Standish, and a host of 
others, live alone in that " vangracy" which Captain John 
Smith saith " wandereth without any certaine habitation," 
to-wit : History; but they do not so much as touch the 
aolea of their teet to the firm land of geography. 

In other New England States, and indeed in the other 
old States of ante-Revolutionary origin, it is perhaps need- 
less to institute research. What has been said already of 
the geographical nomenclature of some of them, will doubt- 
less, with little modification apply, in its general princi- 
ples, to all. 

The newer States springing into existence at the close 
of the Revolutionary struggle, or soon afterward, exclude(J 



18 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATUKE. 

in great measure Aboriginal names. The pioneers were 
too patriotic to omit all possible honors to the heroes in 
the Senate and in the field during the great struggle ; and 
the Red man's conduct during that bitter and protracted 
War had not been of the character to create any fresh fund 
of loye for him. An Aboriginal name of the utmost eu- 
phony — made up of flowing liquds, and vowels in sweet 
profusion — would have been less attractive to his patriotic 
judgment than the harshest combination of consonants of 
which any name of a great Revolutionary leader was com- 
posed. It is almost to be wondered at that our forefathers 
selected the name " Tennessee" when they obtained ad- 
mittance as a State into the Union : that " Frankland," or 
"Franklin" — or as Lippincott erronenonsly has it in his 
great "Gazetteer of the World," Frankliniay should not 
have been preferred. 

In selecting names for States and Territories, however, in 
post-Revolutionary times, a commendable good taste has 
usually prevailed. Euphonious and appropriate names are, 
in general, the result. Our patriotism must forbid com- 
plaint at the selection of the name of Washington, the 254th 
geographical time, to designate a territory lying on the 
Pacific. ' But one of its capes on the Pacific Ocean is named 
Flattery. Just compliments, too often repeated, degenerate 
into flattery; and in the most beautiful elegy in any lan- 
guage, our English poet remarks on the futility of flattery 
" to soothe the dull cold ear of death." By multiplying 
that great name geographically we but flatter ourselves that 
we do not degenerate from his grand example of probity 
and patriotism : Human vanity often essays to reap where 
it affects to sow. The fame of Washington towers sub- 
limely above all geographical names. It needs them not. 
We but stultify ourselves by overdoing such honors. Stand- 
ing beside the tomb on Mt. Vernon, as we did a few 
months since, and in the apartment where bis eyes closed 
forever on earth, we felt with full force for the first time, 
his immeasurable exaltation in true glory above every other 
hero of ancient or modern times. 

In selecting a distinctive name for each geographical ob- 
ject, we do not advocate the exclusive resort to Aboriginal 
sources. Without doubt that is the great fountain whence 
the desired uniformity of disimilarity must be supplied. 
But peculiar circumstances may occasionally suggest an 
appropriate word as the aame of a geographical object, 
and in adopting it, we may run but a small risk of repeti- 
tion elsewhere. The example of our East Tennesseean 
And beautiful river Clinch is at hand. The story is well 



GEOaBAPHlCAL NOMENCLATURB. 19 

known — how the name originated in a circumstance attend- 
ant on its earliest exploration. An Irishman of the party 
who was ignorant of the art of swimming, fell from the 
rude raft into the water, and so energetically exclaimed 
*♦ Clinch me boys!" as to undergo much raillery after res- 
cue, and the stream acquired from the circumstance the 
appellation which has displaced the euphonious and more 
appropriate one of Aboriginal origin — Pelissippi. The lat- 
ter has been fortunately preserved to our day in an old 
map accompanying Adair's quaint old book, " History of 
the American Indians" publi&hed almost a century ago in 
London. The name no where appears in the text of the 
book. We have felt more anxious for the restoration of 
the beautiful appellation Pelissippi, since the name ia 
Georgia is often supposed to commemorate a very distin- 
guished citizen and soldier of that State, Gen. Duncan L. 
Clinch, in whose honor a county in Georgia is named. Our 
River Clinch had received its name long before General 
Clinch as the intrepid drummer-boy at Lundy's Lane woa 
his spurs of knighthood, or had been born. 

Notwithstanding the unfortunate result of the nomen- 
clatural effort to commemorate with certain and indisputa- 
ble distinctness the Irishman's exclamation by the name of 
Clinch River, we need not be wholly discouraged in refer- 
ence to English nanaes. Those of persons of eminent ser- 
vices, and not too general distmction, and of names not too 
common or widely dispersed, may well be adopted. Even 
in that case, however, the name should possess certain ele- 
ments of dignity, euphony and uniqueness. Colquitt 
county in Georgia and Sevier county in this State, may 
serve as happy examples. Maynardsville — if the *' ville," 
(so very unnecessary) were but Legislatively elided, is dis- 
tinctive and appropriate. If the distinguished gentleman 
who bears it, and for whom the village was named, will 
refrain from that excess of distinction which will plant a 
hundred Maynardsvilles in the United States, we know of no 
handsomer name — associated as it is with many of the 
noblest aspirations of some of us at this University in the 
" long ago" when that gentleman so ably filled the chair of 
mathematics here. 

To merit geographical honors, according to our own phi- 
losophy, our great men must be compelled to win them in 
moderation only. Our humorous poet, Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, tells of some funny verses he wrote once in ^'won- 
drous merry mood^" which his footman read as he carried 
them to the printer, so greatly exciting the miith of the 



20 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

footman that a dangerous " fit" was the result ; wherefore, 
the poet concludes — 

Since then, I never dare to write 
As funny as I can/' 

We warn all candidates for ^eo^flp/tuv/Z distinction that 
they must not be as disti7iguished as they can. If their names 
come to be-dot our maps until they become nuisances, no 
matter how euphonious, or how immortal in history, we 
favor expunging resolutions in the domain of Geography. 

2. Yes : Expunging Resolutions. We sorely need a 
national revision of our already existing Geographical No- 
menclature. Not only should national authority be exerted, 
as already suggested, to prevent evils in the future ; but 
those in the past should be corrected^. One vast and har- 
monious and beautiful system, characteristically American, 
free from duplication and confusion, should be provided for 
the tens of millions of people of our day, and the hundreds 
of millions of future ages. National and individual good 
taste, and convenience, will be thereby immensely sub- 
served. We say this with full knowledge, and approval in 
general, of the wise caution of Lord Bacon in his essay on 
" Innovations" in States, where he remarks "It is good not 
to try experiments except the necessity be urgent, or the 
utility evident ; and well to beware that it be the reforma- 
tion that draweth on the change, and not the desire of 
change that pretendeth the reformation." Surely in this 
case the " reformation" — the sore need of it — demands the 
change. 

The late Mr. Schoolcraft, the eminent American Archae- 
ologist, suggests an unfailing fountain from which an abun- 
dant supply of distinctive geographical names can be 
drawn. His two valuable papers entitled respectively 

1. '* Plan of a System of Geographical Names for the Uni- 
ted States, founded on the Aboriginal Languages ;" and 

2. "A description of the Aboriginal American Nomencla- 
ture;" present a complete plan for that purpose. Long 
catalogues of Aboriginal words in •everal of their lan- 
guages, appear in the volumes of Mr. Schoolcraft. With- 
out going into particulars, we may simply say that an am- 
ple magazine of materials is there stored for the formation 
of an almost illimitable supply of distinctive, euphonious, 
and appropriately significant names. The two papers re- 
ferred to appear in the Third Volume of Mr. Schoolcraft's 
great work, which was published in 1853. Already a 
glance at the maps of some of the newly-risen States of 
the West will show that the hint of Mr. Schoolcraft has 
l5een put iato practical operation. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATUBB. 91 

Mr. Schoolcraft's philosophy, however, is only present 
and prospective in its proposed beneficence. Ours ie retro- 
active, also. We would undo what has been illy done in the 
past, and subject the maps of even our oldest States to that 
process whose term has grown familiar to American ears — 
Reconstruction. Power for that purpose should be lodged in 
some of the Briareus-like arms of the National Govern- 
ment. The Post-Office Department would perhaps be 
most suitable. Since Conventions are the ready American 
expedients for manufacturing or directing public opinion, 
we suggest a Great National Geographical Reform Conven- 
tion to meet in Washington City on the assembling of Con- 
gress next December, to devise proper measures for the 
needed reform. 

Our poverty-stricken Geographical nomenclature has 
two Carolinas : cannot one be styled Catawba, from one of 
her Rivers? Or the other Pamlico from one of her border 
seas? — thus avoiding the threadbare prefixes of "North" 
and "South." Could not York State, and Hampshire 
State cast otF their old garments of " New" at the least ? 
And if that would too greatly Anglicise them, could not 
Monadnock, or Merrimac suffice for the latter, and Niagara 
or Ontario for the former ? So with the two Virginias. 
Or better — peculiar and distinctive Aboriginal names can 
easily be exhumed from the early history of these several 
States where they have slept for ages without any geo- 
graphical application. But the naming of States is mainly 
a matter of taste. There is a needful reform which we 
may almost characterize as one of necessity : that of strik- 
ing from our national Geography all precise repetitions of 
names. Possibly we could endure two of each of the favor- 
ites: but they should lave a certain relation to each other: 
one should contain the other, as the county, a city ; or the 
State a county, or a River. 

And while the car of Geographical Reform is in progress, 
we should not fail to carry back to the Old World, and 
drop them there, our very many absurd importations of 
names of towns and cities from that quarter. Our 2S 
American Homes — an average of one in each State, and one 
Territory — we should write their names on bits of paper 
like the good Buddhist Sandara of whom Father Hue tells 
in his Thibetan travels, and waft them across the seas on 
the passing gales to the "Eternal city" of Romulus 
whence they sprung ; and we should affix to each locality 
thus denuded a name indigenous to the soil, characteristic 
euphonious, appropriate, and beyond all, American. No 
servile imitation of the Old Woyld should find a point, or 



fi2 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

a line, or a fragment of the alphabet on all our great Nation- 
al Map. Even our own proud Memphis, grandly seated on 
the shores of the Mississippi River, we would divest of her 
Egyptian name, dropping it on the border of the Nile at the 
foot of the colossal statue of Sesostris where amid ruins it 
belongs ; and we should affix to her Chisca the grandest of 
the names of the Princes who there held his royal Court 
and admitted De Soto to an audience at the foot of his 
throne in the year 1541 ; and all the air over mid ocean 
should be darkened with the hosts of other names servilely 
and most inappropriately borrowed from the East, as they 
should wingiheir flight in flocks like wild pigeons across 
the great deep. A mere glance at the map of the State of 
New York reveals Troy, Utica, Syracuse, Ithaca, Venice^ 
Genoa, Lisbon, Canton, Madrid, Pharsalia., Salem, Stockholm^ 
Potsdam, Carmel, Waterloo, and Greece. How many thous- 
ands of these and others of analagous kinship exist on our 
National Map, in New York and the other 46 States and 
Territories, no man knoweth. Take one of these names as 
an example : there are 52 Troys in the United States : an - 
amount of Troy-weight oppressive and scarcely endurable. 
To these places, each and every one, however thrifty in 
goods and merchandize, in money and trade, in bank and 
railway stock, in morals, in all other sorts of greatness, yet 
absolutely starving with a frightful nomenclatural famine, 
the salutary specific of a peculiar distinctive American 
name is needed for perfect geographical normalcy. We 
commend to th 'i the study of Mr. Schoolcraft's volume 
already alluded to where they will find suggested, but nev- 
er yet (so far as we know of) applied, such names as Adosia^ 
meaning in Algonquin, the original language of the locality 
of Troy New York, " Fair deer land" — Ago8ia,yair shores — 
Minoma, good VVater—Moriana, Good Spirits. From the 
Iroquois, the other great language of New York State, 
Onatta, Hills of the Valley — Tiaroga, place of water and 
rocks — Ontio, beautiful hills — Conataro, tree at a gorge — 
and many others — with a supply of radical words in vari- 
ous languages providing for their indefinite multiplication 
by the simplest laws of permutation. 

Our beloved mountain land, in the midst of which we 
are assembled this evening, is rich in the nomenclatural 
euphony her geography borrowed from the beautiful lan- 
guage of our predecessrs — the Men of Divine Fire, as the 
laborious old author Adair translates the word Cherohees. 
To the South of us stretch the lofty and picturesque sum- 
mits of the Uoaka, or as the oldest authorities better had 
the orthography, Unicoy, Mountains — a name signifying 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURK. 23 

snoun/t or white, from the early sheen of snows upon their 
summits in autumn, and their late lingering there in the 
season of spring. With how many of the holiest and no- 
blest aspirations of our earlier years, when we pursued our 
studies in the honored precincts of our beloved Alma Ma- 
ter, is that distant and misty mountain chain associated ! 
Thanks to the accomplished East Tennesseean artist, Mr. 
F. J. Fisher, for transferring to canvass so many of its 
worthiest scenes. 

We may mention further among the geographical names 
of this region, borrowed from our Aboriginal predecessors, 
Tuckaleechecy signifying about to catch on fire, doubtless from 
some incident, now lost, in the early Cherokee occupancy 
of that region — Tdlico, signifying between the mountains — 
Watauga, intensively " Thank you" — Pelissippi, a name des- 
cended from former races (as Chimborazj) to later tribes in 
possession of the territory, and adopted by them without 
retaining the signiiScation — Wariotu, the handsome Abori- 
ginal name for Cumberland River whose signification is 
likewise lost, but which should be geographically restored 
to the beautiful stream now bestrid by an inappropriate 
name borrowed from England, and which ought to be paid 
back — Ayquosti, the beautiful name for our East-Tennessee 
Little River (there are only 21 " Little" Rivers in the U. 
S.) handsomely signifying /i^e a mcr — i. e. not quite a river, 
and yet large enough to be like one — Chilhowee, signifying 
wound around, or spiral. And the following names should 
be restored : to Lookout-Mountain — there being at least 
three other localities in the U. S. designed as " Lookout" — 
Tantacana, signifying looking at each other: Tacunuwalli, or 
fVeenastujia (the latter signifying endless) in lieu of the bor- 
rowed plumage under which the beautiful Cumberland 
Mountain chain has been compelled to disport himself in 
these latter days. And others : but this discourse ap- 
proaches its allowable limit, and we forbear. We had in- 
tended to offer some remarks in comparison of such a great 
system of Geographical Nomenclature as we advocate, with 
those prevailing in other great nationalities of the globe; 
and also some reflections on the incidental influence of 
Geographical names on national character itself. But we 
forbear, with these remarks, intended to incite others to 
think and to reason out the principles in their own way 
rather than to adopt ours. If we have suggested aught 
valuable, either in avoidance of future evih, or the reform- 
ation of old ones, we shall flatter ourselves that we have 
done the State some service. "General observations" 
(saya Locke) drawn from particulars, are ths jewels of 



24 GEOGRAPHICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

knowledge." And that we should seek a thorough, not a 
partial reform, touching the past as well as the future, we 
may consider the pithy saying of wise Sir Richard Baker, 
in his fine old " Chronicle of the Kings of England" that 
^* Policy looks to the middle — Wisdom to the end.^^ 

The intense industry of modern research is exploring 
every field of inquiry ; and with new aids borrowed con- 
tinually from nature, human reason penetrates more and 
more profoundly into the mysteries of the universe. In 
astronomy, especially, the progress of present knowledge is 
marvelous. In various other branches of physical science, 
it is scarcely less so. In all the arts of Peace — and alas, in 
those of War, also — man's inventiveness and energy presses 
forward with unceasing and accelerated force. Even in 
morals let us continually pray that we may be making 
progress. In the vast field we might have essayed to be a 
more ambitious reaper ; but we have been content with an 
humbler task, and now we lay the littl© sheaf down before 
you. In the language of a great poet's apostrophe to 
Time: 

"Among the mlg;htier ofiTerings, h«re are mine !" 



108 f 



V ' * " 







'.^-^^ 



